r,
have been singularly slow in acquiring _appropriate names_--or any
appellatives suited to their nature, or such as could obtain the sanction
of general use. The name _breve_, from the French _breve_, (which latter
word came, doubtless, originally from the neuter of the Latin adjective
_brevis_, short,) is now pretty generally applied to the one; and the Greek
term _macron_, long, (also originally a neuter adjective,) is perhaps as
common as any name for the other. But these are not quite so well adapted
to each other, and to the things named, as are the substitutes added above.

2. These signs are explained in our grammars under various names, and often
very unfit ones, to say the least; and, in many instances, their use is, in
some way, awkwardly stated, without any attempt to name them, or more than
one, if either. The Rev. T. Smith names them "Long (=), and Short
(~)."--_Smith's Murray_, p. 72. Churchill calls them "The _long_ = and the
_short_ ~."--_New Gram._, p. 170. Gould calls them "a horizontal line" and
"a curved line."--_Gould's Adam's Gram._, p. 3. Coar says, "Quantity is
distinguished by the characters of - long, and ~ short."--_Eng. Gram._, p.
197. But, in speaking of the _signs_, he calls them, "_A long syllable_ =,"
and "_A short syllable_ ~."--_Gram._, pp. 222 and 228. S. S. Greene calls
them "the _long sound_," and "the _breve_ or _short sound_."--_Gram._, p.
257. W. Allen says, "The _long-syllable mark_, (=) and the _breve_, or
_short-syllable mark_, (~) denote the quantity of _words_ poetically
employed."--_Gram._, p. 215. Some call them "the _Long Accent_," and "the
_Short Accent_;" as does _Guy's Gram._, p. 95. This naming seems to
confound accent with quantity. By some, the _Macron_ is improperly called
"a _Dash_;" as by _Lennie_, p. 137; by _Bullions_, p. 157; by _Hiley_, p.
123; by _Butler_, p. 215. Some call it "a _small dash_;" as does _Well's_,
p. 183; so _Hiley_, p. 117. By some it is absurdly named "_Hyphen_;" as by
_Buchanan_, p. 162; by _Alden_, p. 165; by _Chandler_, 183; by _Parker and
Fox_, iii, 36; by _Jaudon_, 193. Sanborn calls it "the _hyphen_, or
_macron_."--_Analyt. Gr._, p. 279. Many, who name it not, introduce it to
their readers by a "_this_ =," or "_thus_ ~;" as do _Alger, Blair, Dr.
Adam, Comly, Cooper, Ingersoll, L. Murray, Sanders, Wright_, and others!

[470] "As soon as language proceeds, from mere _articulation_, to
coherency, and connection, _accent_ becomes the guide